ECR now has a new director

A longtime staff member has taken over leadership of an Ely area community service agency.

Jill Nocera Swanson is the new executive director of Ely Community Resource.

Nocera Swanson, who moved into her new role Nov. 1, has been with the agency since 2011 and succeeds Julie Hignell, who retired after about 15 years in her post.

The transition is natural for Swanson, who has coordinated middle and high school programming as well as after-school programs and other initiatives.

“I’m so excited,” Nocera Swanson said Tuesday. “I’ve been here for a long time and the favorite part about my job is getting to work with the kids in this town, some of them from when they are in kindergarten and watching them grow throughout middle and high school until they graduate. It’s so awesome to be part of this process.”

Nocera Swanson, a native of Connecticut, will oversee an ECR operation that has four full-time staff, a parttime bookkeeper and two other hourly employees.

The agency provides an array of programming for area youth and relies heavily on grant funding.

Earlier this year, ECR faced a cash crunch after losing two key sources of revenue, prompting concerns that some agency programming would be curtailed.

Nocera Swanson said that “the community has really stepped up and helped during this time” but ECR’s financial challenges continue.

“We have some grants that are pending and we’re trying to look for other grants and apply for more grants,” she said. “Right now we’re doing OK thanks to the support of the community. And, Julie Hignell secured a grant for us before retiring that will be very helpful as we move forward.”

In addition to coordinating various ECR school programming, Swanson has been the high school’s Key Club advisor and facilitated ECR’s summer reading program.

She also has, for roughly a decade, coordinated ECR’s involvement in the aquatic invasive species water project, collaborating with groups including the Burntside and White Iron Chain of Lakes associations, the U.S. Forest Service, Vermilion Community College and the Lake County and St. Louis County soil and water associations.

While still new to her position, Nocera Swanson brings extensive familiarity with ECR to the job and is looking ahead to the future.

“I really want to continue the amazing partnership we have with the school,” she said. “And I’d like to really expand the partnerships we have within the community. We have such wonderful collaboration and people and organizations and businesses and I’d love to harness that and keep helping each other out.”

ECR has gained high marks locally and beyond the community for its work with area youth and Nocera Swanson said that has come with building strong connections.

“We make connections not only with kids but with families,” said Nocera Swanson. “You work so much with kids and families and I just love that.”

She added, “ECR has been around for 46 years helping children and families in the Ely area. We’ve had the opportunity to provide meaningful programs and services free of charge so that everyone can participate. This is very important to us. We would love to continue our vision for years to come in helping to build a community equipped to make Ely...a great place to grow up!” A winding path brought Nocera Swanson to Ely.

She is a graduate of the University of Vermont, where she played Division I softball and gained a secondary science teaching degree.

After teaching stints in both Vermont and Connecticut, she taught outdoor education at an enviornmental learning center and California, and later went abroad and taught English as a secondary language.

Nocera Swanson later moved back to the United States and went to graduate school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, where she obtained a master’s degree in environmental education and worked at Wolf Ridge Learning Center.

She later moved to Ely with her husband Scott, who works for the U.S. Forest Service.

“We decided to stay here and we really loved the community and people here and made some great friends, and we decided to make this home,” said Nocera Swanson.

Nocera Swanson is the mother of two daughters - sixth-grader Kaija and fourth-grader Mila.